Captain Future 02 - Calling Captain Future (Spring 1940)

by Edmond Hamilton

  “What dark star?” snapped Captain Future. “I’ve heard nothing. Simon and I have been engaged for weeks in advanced electronic experiments. Tell me what’s been going on.”

  James Carthew told him, in hasty, stumbling words.

  “Nine-tenths of the people now believe utterly in Doctor Zarro’s warnings!” Carthew finished hoarsely. “They want me to turn over all power to him, because he claims he can avert the peril.”

  Curt’s gray eyes snapped.

  “Obviously this Doctor Zarro is merely using the dark star as a pretext to usurp dictatorial power. You say the System astronomers are convinced that there is no real peril in the dark star?”

  “Yes. They all agreed that the dark star has far too small a mass to be a danger. Though it is hard to believe so large a body could have so small a mass.”

  “Simon and I will check on that by observing the dark star for ourselves,” muttered Curt. “But first this Doctor Zarro has to be caught and silenced before he spreads more panic.”

  Commander Anders shook his head hopelessly.

  “We can’t find Doctor Zarro! It is impossible to locate the hidden base he and his Legion are using. And more scientists keep disappearing — Kansu Kane, the astro-physicist of Venus Observatory, vanished an hour ago!”

  “It’s legitimate to infer that Doctor Zarro’s Legion is behind these vanishings,” Curt said. “We must have a starting point. I think we’ll go to Venus and try to pick up the trail —”

  The desk televisor buzzed suddenly. Commander Halk Anders sprang toward it.

  “I ordered all calls from Venus routed to me here,” he exclaimed. “It may be one of our agents there —”

  He pressed a button. In the televisor screen appeared the face of a strikingly pretty Earth girl, with dark, wavy hair. Her small, firm face was pale, her brown eyes flashing excitedly.

  “Joan Randall!” exclaimed Curt Newton.

  He recognized the girl as one of the ace secret agents of the Planet Police. She had helped him on Jupiter recently in the case of the Space Emperor.

  “Captain Future!” cried the girl joyfully. “Then you’re working against Doctor Zarro? Thank heavens!”

  SHE spoke with urgent rapidity. “I think I’ve got a lead to this Doctor Zarro. I was here on Venus when Kansu Kane, the scientist, vanished an hour ago. He was kidnapped by the Legion of Doom. I trailed the Legion men who did it to their ship, and heard them say their next job would be to seize Gatola, the Martian astronomer —”

  Joan suddenly stopped. She exclaimed: “Someone’s trying to get in here! If the Legion saw me and followed me —”

  She disappeared from the screen. They heard the crash of a bursting door, then a scream. The televisor went dark.

  “Joan!” cried Captain Future. There was no answer.

  “The Legion of Doom realized she was spying on them! They’ve kidnapped her too, lad!” rasped the Brain.

  Chapter 3: On Desert Mars

  THE cold night wind whispered across the Martian desert, seeming to murmur of mystery and a mighty past. It sighed like a chill, alien breath toward the lighted towers of Syrtis, the equatorial Martian metropolis in the distance.

  Out here in the moonlit desert a mile from the city Syrtis, the Comet lay motionless between two concealing sand dunes. Inside the little ship, in the super-compact laboratory that occupied its mid-section, Captain Future was rapidly preparing for a perilous enterprise.

  His red hair almost touched the ceiling as his tall figure strode to and fro, explaining his plan to the Futuremen.

  “It’s our one chance to get Joan Randall out of the hands of the Legion of Doom, and to get a lead to Doctor Zarro!” he explained, his gray eyes alight. “That’s why I wanted to come straight to Mars from Earth, after we realized Joan had been captured. Joan said that the Legion, or those of it who kidnapped Kansu Kane, were coming next to Mars to abduct Gatola, the astronomer-director of Syrtis Observatory. They should arrive here tonight for the attempt. When they come, I’ll be waiting for them!”

  The Brain’s lens-eyes doubtfully watched the keen, eager brown face of the young scientific wizard.

  “But if the Legion men heard Joan telling us of their plans, they won’t be foolish enough to come here,” he objected.

  “I doubt if they heard. We’ve got to chance it. They’ll have Joan and Kansu Kane with them as captives when they come to kidnap Gatola. We’ll turn the tables on them — if we’re lucky.”

  Grag the robot shifted his great metal body uneasily. He had been standing listening with Otho and the Brain, with the little bright-eyed moon-pup chewing playfully on his arm.

  “Of course we can overcome these Legion men, master,” he said with heavy subtlety.

  Curt grinned at him. “Nothing doing, Grag — you stay here in the ship with Simon. Otho goes with me.”

  “You always take him!” Grag complained loudly. “Why can’t I go too?”

  Otho laughed jeeringly. “Do you suppose we want a bunch of rusty machinery clanking along with us through the city? You stay here with your crazy little pet — and keep him from eating up my equipment, or I’ll toss him out into space somewhere.”

  Eek, the gray moon-pup, thrust its sharp snout toward Otho and made a furious grimace, its chisel-like teeth clashing.

  The moon-pup was telepathic, that being the only means of communication evolved by its species on the airless, soundless moon. It fully understood Otho’s dislike, and reciprocated heartily.

  “You have hurt Eek’s feelings!” Grag boomed wrathfully. “You are always picking on him, just because he has to have a little metal to eat sometimes.”

  “A little?” echoed Otho. “The cursed beast ate half a steelite stanchion today before we stopped him!”

  CURT NEWTON had turned and was speaking earnestly to the Brain, whose case rested on his special pedestal.

  “Simon, while I’m gone you can make some photographic and spectroscopic studies of the dark star. Especially, we need some accurate measurements of its mass.”

  “Aye, lad,” rasped the Brain. “I should have them all in a few hours.”

  The mid-section of the Comet, in which Curt and the Futuremen now were, contained all the facilities the Brain would need for his researches. Electro-telescopes, spectro-telescopes, bolometers, and compact spectro-heliographs crowded the corner devoted to astronomical science. Marvelous photographic equipment occupied a place next to the file, which contained spectra of all System bodies and of thousands of stars, and atmosphere-samples of all worlds.

  Yet this was only a corner of the flying-laboratory of the scientific wizard. The botanical section held hundreds of specimen plants and vegetable drugs from many planets. In the mineralogical cabinet were samples of minerals from Mercury to Pluto, The chemical section held containers of every element known to science, as well as wonderfully complete chemical apparatus. And the bio-medical corner comprised every necessary instrument for exhaustive biological research, as well as a folding operating table upon which Captain Future had more than once shown his superlative skill in surgery.

  The laboratory was completed by an exhaustive reference library — a library without books. It was a square metal cabinet that held every scientific book and monograph of value that had ever been published, reduced to microfilm which could be read through a special apparatus.

  “I’ll check all data on the dark star,” the Brain was repeating to Curt. “But you be careful, lad!”

  “I’ll look out that he doesn’t do anything rash, Simon,” promised Otho importantly.

  “And who’ll look out for you, you crazy excitement-hunter?” demanded the Brain witheringly of the android. “Trouble draws you like a magnet.”

  Curt laughed at the crestfallen android.

  “Come on, Otho — the observatory is on the other side of Syrtis, two miles away. We’ll have to hurry.”

  They emerged into the nipping chill of the Martian night, tramped through the sands toward the ligh
ted towers of Syrtis, Curt in a long, swinging stride, Otho moving as lithely and soundlessly as a shadow.

  Curt looked up with a tingling of his blood at Phobos and Deimos, the two brilliant moons hurtling low across the brooding desert. It had been months since he had been on Mars, and the magic of this old world of whispering deserts touched him strongly.

  Ahead bulked the city. It was a typical Martian city of slender stone towers whose upper stories were larger than the lower, giving them a top-heavy look. Dizzy galleries and stairs joined the towers. Only on a low-gravity world was such architecture possible.

  Captain Future could see that the brightly lit center of the city was crowded. From it came a babel of excited voice.

  “Shall we see what’s going on?” Otho asked eagerly. The devil-may-care android was always drawn by excitement.

  “No,we’ve enough on our hands now,” Curt told him severely. “We mustn’t lose any time getting to the observatory.”

  HE AND Otho skirted the crowded central streets, keeping their concealing cloaks and hoods wrapped around them.

  Earthmen colonists, planters, prospectors and space-sailors were in the crowds. They were outnumbered by the throngs of native Martians, big-chested, stilt-limbed men with leathery red faces and bald heads.

  Captain Future heard an Earthman colonial official speaking with hoarse earnestness to the seething crowd.

  “Don’t let Doctor Zarro’s alarmist broadcasts drive you to rash action!” he shouted. “The Government and scientists have assured us there is no danger from the dark star —”

  “The scientists!” jeered a fierce Martian voice. “They denied at first there was any dark star at all! And now most of them have fled out of the System for safety.”

  “Yes!” yelled a chorus of supporting voices. “They can’t help us in this peril. Doctor Zarro is the only one who can save us. Give Doctor Zarro the power he asks!”

  “The crazy fools!” muttered Otho. “Begging for a dictator, just because they’re scared by a pack of lies.”

  Curt’s tan face was grave. “Unless Doctor Zarro and his broadcasts are stopped soon, he’ll be the System dictator. Things are worse than I thought — we’ve little time!”

  HE AND the android pressed on across the city and soon reached the Syrtis Observatory. It lay a little outside the city in the desert, its huge dome bulking black and silent.

  In the shadowy interior, a bald, red, middle-aged Martian sat at a lighted desk beneath the great telescope, calculating. He sprang up with a cry as he glimpsed Curt and the unhuman android.

  “What — who —” he stammered. Then as Curt held out his left hand, he glimpsed the big ring. “Captain Future!”

  “You’re Gatola, director here?” Curt said sharply. The Martian, staring awedly at him nodded.

  “A party of the Legion of Doom is coming to kidnap you. They’ll be here any moment.”

  Gatola’s eyes dilated. “Gods of Mars, if they —”

  “But you’re not going to be here when they come, Gatola,” Curt continued. “Otho, my comrade, will take your place.”

  He turned to the android.

  “All right, Otho — make up as this Martian. And hurry it!”

  “Do I ever lag?” hissed Otho indignantly. He was clawing his disguise-equipment from a square pouch at his belt.

  From a small lead flask, Otho sprayed a colorless chemical oil onto his head and body.

  Otho’s rubbery white synthetic flesh was wholly unlike ordinary flesh. It could be softened by chemical agents, and when soft, it was as plastic and easy to mold as clay. That fact made the android the greatest master of disguise in the System’s history.

  In a few minutes Otho’s queer flesh became soft and putty-like — all except his hands, which he had been careful to leave unchanged. Now he began to mold the flesh of his own body into new outlines, like a sculptor working on himself!

  His legs he molded into thin, stilt-like ones similar to the Martian’s. He expanded his chest. And finally he molded his face into an exact replica, feature for feature, of Gatola’s face.

  Then his flesh hardened, grew rubbery and firm again, retaining the new outlines. Rapidly Otho stained himself with red dye from his make-up pouch. And Otho finally stood, an exact replica of Gatola, as though an uncanny twin.

  “All done, Chief,” Otho reported to Captain Future, speaking in an accurate reproduction of the Martian’s voice.

  Gatola’s eyes were protruding in amazement. But Curt gave the Martian no time to voice his bewilderment.

  “Leave here at once, Gatola,” Captain Future ordered. “Otho will take your place here for tonight. Understand?”

  “I don’t understand,” said the Martian dazedly, “but I’ll go. I’ll go home, and stay there.”

  When the Martian had gone, Curt gave Otho his final instructions.

  “If the Legion of Doom ship comes, it will land outside. Part of its crew at least will come in here to seize Gatola — you. I want you to argue with them, resist them, do anything short of getting yourself killed, to delay them in here. That will give me a chance to get into their ship and get Joan and Kansu Kane out.”

  “It sounds dangerous for you!” Otho protested. “Why couldn’t we have had a squad of the Planet Police here to seize these mysterious devils when they come?”

  “The Legion would resist and Joan would probably be killed,” Curt retorted. “And I’m counting on getting a lead to Doctor Zarro from what she’s learned.”

  “And you are sort of anxious about this Police girl anyway, aren’t you?” Otho asked slyly.

  Curt gave him a cuff that sent the laughing android spinning.

  “This isn’t any time for your damned nonsense. Get over to that telescope and try to act as though you knew something about astronomy.”

  “What do you mean, ‘act’?” Otho hissed indignantly. “I know more about other worlds than the old men who sit in these places and peer at them. I don’t study astronomy — I live it!”

  Chuckling, Curt hastened back out of the shadowy observatory. He crouched down in the shadow, loosening his proton-pistol in its holster, and waited. Time passed slowly. But Captain Future had learned patience from Grag the robot, who could sit for a week without moving his metal limbs. The red-haired scientific wizard remained concealed, watching and waiting.

  Presently Phobos set. The night became pitch dark, except for the thin rays of the great hosts of stars shining down upon the age-old deserts. A little wind moaned through the night.

  Curt noticed a small black object circling high against the stars. At first, he thought it was a Martian owl. Then his super-keen hearing caught the dim throbbing of muffled rocket — tubes.

  “The Legion of Doom ship!” he muttered. “Coming for Gatola —”

  NOW the ship was swooping down in a wide spiral toward the observatory, swinging down out of the stars without lights and with its rocket-tubes almost silent, a black, phantom craft — its attached space boats and grim batteries of atom-guns vaguely outlined. It came to rest near the observatory, and Curt saw its door opening.

  A dozen men emerged, soundlessly as shadows. Two took up their places as guards outside the ship’s door, the starlight glinting on their atom-pistols. The others moved silently and rapidly toward the observatory.

  Captain Future crouched lower in the shadow as they passed. In the starlight, they appeared as Earthmen wearing a gray uniform, on each shoulder the black disk of the Legion of Doom. Led by hulking, heavy-treading giant, they entered the building.

  “Damn those guards!” Curt thought, peering at the two Legionaries standing outside the ship door.

  He drew out a disklike instrument from his tungstite belt. “Annoying, but necessary,” he muttered. “I’ll have to resort to invisibility, if I want to avoid their giving an alarm.”

  One of the greatest secrets of the red-haired scientific wizard was his power of making himself invisible. He did it by giving his body a temporary charge of force
which refracted all light around it, making him completely unseen. The effect lasted only for ten minutes — but that should be time enough, Curt thought.

  He held the disklike instrument over his head, and pressed its stud. An unseen force streamed down through his body, tingling through every fiber. Looking down at himself, he saw his body becoming rapidly translucent, misty. At the same time, darkness seemed to close around him.

  He heard an uproar from inside the observatory — Otho shouting in Gatola’s voice, a clatter of feet and banging of furniture. Otho was doing his part to hold up the Legion men in there.

  Curt found himself in utter darkness. He knew that be was now completely invisible. All light was being refracted around him — and that left him entirely without power of vision.

  But Captain Future had spotted the exact direction and distance of the door of the Legion ship. Now he moved toward it.

  Curt, from long practice, and because of his super-keen sense of hearing, could move without sight almost as well as an ordinary man who saw. He crept hastily forward, and as he neared the ship he could bear the breathing of the two guards outside its door.

  He passed right in between them, stepping up through the air-lock of the ship and into a metal corridor. He heard voices, throbbing cyclotrons. He stood, waiting tensely for the invisibility to pass — he must have sight, to find Joan in this ship. The uproar from inside the observatory was louder. Otho was doing nobly in the job of making trouble for his abductors. Curt could imagine that the android was having a wonderful time in there. The darkness enveloping Captain Future began to dissipate. His invisibility was passing. In a moment, he could see.

  He stood in a corridor leading toward the stern of the Legion cruiser. Back there were the droning power-cyclotrons, and the voices of the men who tended them. Curt, from his encyclopedic knowledge of space craft, concluded the prisoners would be forward.

  THE big red-headed young man found a corridor leading forward and raced soundlessly along its dim length, his proton-pistol gripped in his hand.